Saturday, February 18, 2017

While the ideas of the
Reconstructionists can be seen in the popular magazine, Christianity Today, the place to read the dominionist views in the
Pentecostal/charismatic tradition is Charisma
Magazine. In its October, 2016 issue, Charisma
carried an article called, “Why I Believe Trump Is the Prophesied President,”
by Lance Wallnau. The writer believed he received a word from God as he met
with Trump in Trump Tower alongside ‘notables’ like Franklin Graham, Paula
White, Kenneth Copeland, and David Jeremiah all of whom were invited to meet with
Trump and pray over him. Wallnau says that God revealed to him at that time
that Trump was His chosen anointed, Cyrus.

King Cyrus was a Babylonian
king in the Old Testament that God used to assist the Jews in returning to
Israel to rebuild the Temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. Though
Cyrus was not a Jew but a Persian, God still used him to fulfill His will and he
returned to the Jews the Temple treasury that had been looted. The prophet
Isaiah prophesied of him:

“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations
before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two
leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make
the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut
in sunder the bars of iron. ” – Is 45:1

In October, 2016 Charisma’s publisher, Stephen Strang interviewed Wallnau about his
‘word from God’ that Trump was God’s chosen leader. The 20-minute tape was
widely distributed to churches across America. Steve Shultz, the founder of The
Elijah List, (an umbrella group created for the propagation of so-called words
of knowledge and prophecies by today’s popular prophets, apostles, dreamers,
and seers) sent it to his millions of subscribers to rally them to vote Trump.
In his intro to the interview he wrote:

“The encounter Lance Wallnau had with God and the
things FROM SCRIPTURE that God told Lance is nothing short of shocking…PLEASE
go out and VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE. But this time... THIS TIME... you can vote
according to the WISDOM God has given to you through Steve Strang (owner of Charisma Magazine) and Lance Wallnau.
Ready? Hold on to your hat.” [e-mail dated Oct. 5, 2016, emphasis in original]

The link to the podcast on Charisma’s Podcast
Network (https://www.charismapodcastnetwork.com/shows/strangreport/950eca02f9c9b5e7eaa9882caabd3e73
) still contains the discussion.

Wallnau convinced Strang that God told him
that Trump was to fulfill in our day the same prophecies in Isaiah 45 that King
Cyrus did on behalf of Israel thousands of years ago. Wallnau had seen a
facebook picture of Trump shown as the 45th President of the United
States, which he interpreted as confirmation of the Isaiah 45 prophecies that
dealt specifically with King Cyrus who lived 3,000 years ago.

Many other pastors and leaders grabbed ahold of
this ‘word from God’ and built upon Wallnau’s testimony. Well-known prophecy
teacher Perry Stone posted his numeric spin on the Cyrus anointed Trump on his
Facebook page dated November 3, 2016:

“Donald J. Trump was born June 14, 1946 and is
presently 70 years of age as of June 14, 2017. Going forward 7 months would be
January 14, 2016, and adding 7 days brings us to Jan 21st, which would be
Trumps first full day in office if he were elected. He would begin his first
full day one day after his official inauguration on Jan. 20th. These three
sevens - 70 years, plus 7 months plus 7 days are three sevens - which may be
linked, from a rabbinical perspective, to the Jewish year we are now in,
5,777.”

Messianic pastor, Curt Landry, took it even further
in his blog post dated November 20, 2016. He restated the Isaiah 45 and Jewish
year 5777 ideas without attribution as evidence that Trump is God’s anointed
Cyrus and spoke of the prayer circle around Trump that Wallnau participated in:

“I personally believe that Donald Trump found God
during the election process. When the pressure was getting to him, he placed an
Evangelical circle around him who laid hands on him and prayed for him, and it
is reported that he accepted Yeshua as Lord!... Donald Trump is open to the
prophets and the prophetic word. There are good prophets of God surrounding him
and speaking into his life…

“George Washington had a vision and a prophecy in
1777 about this season of time. So isn’t it interesting that just as Isaiah
prophesied that there would be someone like Cyrus from Persia raised up for
that season; George Washington referred to a season of time when God would
raise up someone like Donald Trump.” [https://www.curtlandry.com/is-donald-j-trump-a-cyrus-or-a-nebuchadnezzar/#
]

Wallnau is the co-editor of a 2013 book, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate,
with Bill Johnson, the infamous pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California,
most notable for their ‘fire tunnels’ and a prayer room inside a pyramid
structure. Wallnau defines them as: “The 7 Mountain Mandate, in which
Christians seek to gain influence over the "mountains" of government,
church, education, family, media, arts, and business…this can be done either
overtly or covertly, as ‘infiltration.’” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQbGnJd9poc
]

He attributes the idea for the mandate to a
conversation he had with Loren Cunningham (founder of Youth With a Mission
{YWAM}) who had bounced the idea off of Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade
for Christ), which evolved into the thesis for the book, which featured
chapters from like-minded leaders including C. Peter Wagner, Ché Ahn, and
Patricia King.

As already documented, the Post-millennial aspiration
of the church taking global control over all earth’s institutions was the
stated goal of the Reconstructionists in the mainline denominations. However,
these ideas parallel the dreams and visions of so-called prophets that arose in
the mid-twentieth century, from whom the charismaniacs got their inspiration.
So it is hard to say which came first – the chicken or the egg.

Joel’s
Army and the Coming Civil War

Much has been written about
the development of the “Latter Rain Movement” popularized in the 1940s-1950s by
men such as William Branham and others in the big-tent “healing revivals” of
that time. One of the best historical analyses of its development was written
by Albert Dager, publisher of Media Spotlight, a quarterly that is still in
print.

“In
the fall of 1946, a major teaching on fasting and prayer as a means to revival
and the ‘restoration’ of the Church was spread throughout Pentecostalism. The
principle textbook for this teaching was Franklin Hall’s, Atomic Power With God Through Fasting and Prayer. . . Hall’s book
melded biblical concepts with occult methodology.” [Al Dager, Latter-Day Prophets,
Media Spotlight Special Report)

The Hall book is still
available at Amazon. In its book preview, the original endorsements of two
major names in healing revivals of that day demonstrate its impact of the time:

·T. L. Osborn: “Brother Hall, we wanted you to
know, we do appreciate your vision, and the tremendous way you have stirred the
world with fasting and prayer. We are going to handle your books at our
meetings.”

·Gordon Lindsay: “We know of no writer whom God
has so signally used to bring out Scriptural truth on fasting as Evangelist
Franklin Hall. We feel that “Atomic Power with God” is the book of the hour for
believers.

Others that said Hall’s book had a major influence
in their ministries are Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen, O. L. Jaggers, and W. V. Grant.
Yet did none of these men see the merger of the Bible with the occult? If they
did, that didn’t seem to matter. Just the first chapter of the book says:

“The writer shall endeavor to
present a spiritual atomic power far greater than the physical force of all the
atoms in the universe… In 1848 A.D. the Aquarian Age was introduced to the
world. The era of invention began and the machine came into being.”

Dager quotes Hall’s book again making reference to
astrology:

“In the zodiacal sign,
‘Scorpio,’ which is the eighth sign of the Zodiac, we have a picture of a
scorpion with its stinger lifted ready to strike… Just before this sign in the
heavens, there is a sign of the Judge, Jesus, who is the giver of LIFE. Jesus
proceeds toward death and pulls the STING OUT OF DEATH. (Emphasis Hall’s)”

Dager records how anti-Trinitarian false teacher
William Branham, took Hall’s book and added his own spin on it in 1948. The
Latter Rain movement evolved into the teachings of “The Manifest Sons of God” popularized
by John Robert Stevens, a cult leader in the 1970s of a group known as The Walk.
The manifested sons played up Hall’s idea of the immortalization of believers
who tap into this atomic power and then put it into an eschatological context.
Dager lists the basic tenets of the Latter Rain that can be seen as
foundational to many of today’s new apostles and prophets.

1.The restoration of the offices of prophet and apostle
in the last days;

2.Perfection of the saints in stages leading to godhood;

3.New apostles to rule Church under their covering;

4.Signs and wonders would be wrought by them in a
worldwide revival;

5.Revival would result in the defeat of demonic spirits
via prayer and fasting;

6.Overcomers under apostle’s leadership will defeat death
and become immortal;

7.Church will become Christ on earth and rule the nations
with a rod of iron.

The chain of groups that tapped into the ‘atomic
power’ can be followed into the 1980s in the ‘ministries’ of the Vineyard
churches and Fuller Seminary’s Church Growth Department in the School of World
Missions. The late John Wimber headed up the former; Prof. C. Peter Wagner was
the voice of the latter. The two teamed up to do a class called “Signs and
Wonders” at Fuller, an apostate seminary that rejected biblical inerrancy in
the 1960s.

Wimber had been an assistant pastor of Chuck Smith,
founder of the Calvary Chapel association of churches that arose during a true
revival of the days of the hippies in Southern California. Wimber’s slogan was
“doing the stuff,” as he developed formulas for reproducing healing results by
studying true spiritual gifts that were present in that revival. He can be
compared to Simon the Magician in the New Testament that was impressed by God’s
power and wanted a piece of the action for his own selfish gain. Smith and
Wimber went separate ways after dividing over whether the emphasis should be on
the Bible or on the ‘power.” Wimber wrote several books on that atomic power,
including “Power Evangelism” and “Power Healing.”

C. Peter Wagner, a church growth expert at Fuller, saw
the potential in Wimber, a former producer of popular musical artists that
included The Righteous Brothers. Their partnership at Fuller was very
successful as their co-taught classes became the most popular ones in the
catalogue among the students for many years. They furthered Franklin Hall’s
ideas that through spiritual exercises, which included fasting and centering
prayer, they could ‘do the stuff’ themselves by their own supposed authority.
God was no longer the Healer; they were -- if they could just tap into the
power.

Enter: Mike Bickle. At the same time the Vineyard
movement was becoming popular under Wimber’s leadership, many so-called
prophets were showing up at conferences and crusades. Names like Bill Hamon,
Paul Cain, Bob Jones, and Rick Joyner would show up in ads in Charisma Magazine, promising to astound
the crowds with revelation knowledge and testimonies of visions, dreams and disembodied
heavenly voices. One of those voices inspired a young man, Mike Bickle, to launch
a ministry to combine forces with the prophets “to touch the ends of the earth.”
Kansas City Fellowship was born.

“In 1986, the leaders of Kansas City
Fellowship formed Grace Ministries, described as a ‘ministry team of men committed
to seeing the church fully restored to the glory described in God’s Word.’”
[Dager, Latter-Day Prophets]

Bickle’s para-church group became known as “The
Kansas City Prophets.” They published a newsletter called “The Shepherd’s Rod”
and when some of the ‘prophets’ were discovered to be living in immorality –
not immortality – they invited John Wimber to be their ‘covering.’ Wimber and
his associate Jack Deere provided some twisted doctrine for the false prophets
in order to stop the mouths of those warning of their collective false
prophecies. Wimber wrote articles claiming that New Testament prophets did not
have to have the same 100% accuracy as required in Deuteronomy 18 for Old
Testament prophets. He said that today’s prophets were like babies, needed to
practice to get better at it, and were just “messy” like all babes.

One of Bickle’s favorite ‘prophets’
was Bob Jones, a man that convinced women to disrobe for his sick pleasure by tacking
a ‘thus saith the Lord’ onto his requests. Jones was considered to be a
super-prophet that supposedly had instant access to the heavenlies at will.

The Kansas City Prophets
were thought to be a fulfillment of Hall and Branham’s Joel’s Army, the new
breed.

The
KC prophets were seen as “the ‘new breed’ an elite group of believers endowed
with supernatural power that would enable them to be a part of the army of
dread warriors that God was said to be raising up in our generation. According
to John Wimber, this is a type of ‘Joel’s Army’ who will overcome all
opposition to the gospel and eventually subdue the nations. This teaching is
part of what is known as ‘dominion theology,’ which teaches that an elite army
of overcomers will either destroy or subdue all the enemies of Christ until
they eventually gain power and authority throughout the world. The government
of the nations will be upon their shoulders and when all the secular
authorities, governments, princes and kings have finally submitted to them,
Christ will return and they will present the kingdom to Him.” [Clifford Hill, ‘Kansas
City Prophets, Prophecy Today Magazine,
quoted from www.geocities.com/Bob_Hunter/8.htm]

The biggest obstacle standing in the way of these ‘prophets’
are those in the church that expose them for what they are. The new
apostles/prophets refer to their critics in the church as the “old paradigm,”
and they are the “new paradigm.” The discerning people are old wine skins;
while they are the new wine. The old has to make way for the new, join up with
them or be cast away and out of the limelight.

“I believe that God is
going to renovate the entire understanding of what Christianity is in the
nations of the Earth,” said Bickle on a tape entitled, “Overview of Corporate
Long Term Vision,” 1/5/86. “In twenty years there will be a totally different
understanding of what Christianity is from what it is right now. . . I believe
God is going to restore it and change it in the Earth in this generation.”

Wimber cut ties with the
Kansas City Fellowship when he could no longer defend their long stream of
false prophecies given by poo-poo baby prophets. The same mantle was picked up
by C. Peter Wagner who was seen as the leading apostle of those following the
views of the Latter Rain. His new venture was named the New Apostolic
Reformation (NAR), and became an umbrella group for the movement. The false
prophets had a new defender in Wagner and under the NAR banner they continued
to operate alongside Word/Faith churches around the world.

Renowned false prophet Rick
Joyner, pastor of MorningStar Ministries, located in North Carolina on the
grounds of the former PTL Club of Jim and Tammy Bakker, has written about a
coming “Civil War” against all opposition to the “New Breed.” Charisma Magazine ran a cover story on
Joyner in the April 2001 issue, called “God’s Lightning Rod.” It pointed out
Joyner’s record of delivering prophecies that failed. Joyner responded angrily
to the article in a letter to the editor. He said that God told him that now was
the time for Matthew 13:41-42 to be fulfilled.

“The Son of
Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all
things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into
the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

Joyner says that God
revealed to him that he is one of those angels and “this is a special
assignment that is now being given to some who are about to arise.” He referred
to his critics as “illegitimate authorities in the church who are in jeopardy
of being stumbling blocks, which the Lord said was worse than not having been
born.” He and other false prophets say that their critics will soon drop dead
just like Ananias and Sapphira did when lying to the Apostle Peter in the fifth
chapter of Acts. “The end-time spiritual seals unit will be an invincible band
who lead the church in dominion on the earth,” said KC Prophet Paul Cain. “A
purging of the wider church of those who will not follow the new order is
necessary to constitute a unified global church.” [Quoted in an article by
Orrel Steinkamp, “The Second Pentecost Leads to the World Church, March 2000]

In the past ten years or
so, the political aspirations of the NAR and their global agenda began to take
center stage. They would latch onto Christian politicians such as Michele
Bachmann and Sarah Palin who would participate in their dominionist/political
rallies or speak at their churches. They seemed to be looking for a political
leader to carry their own mantle to take back America. If they failed, they
would be forced to admit that all the ‘prophets’ of the past century were
indeed speaking with forked tongues. Their very reputations were on the line.

Washington D.C. became a favorite
locale for their rallies. In November 2010, one such rally featuring an array
of false prophets such as Rick Joyner, Bob Jones, Chuck Pierce, Dutch Sheets,
Heidi Baker and representatives from ministries such as Bethel Church Redding
and CBN, Pat Robertson’s ministry, gathered under the title: “The Shift; Can a
Nation be Re-Born in a Day”?

The promotional material
for the event laid out the aims of these NAR affiliated speakers:

“The
Shift is a call to the Bride of Christ who solely contains the power of God to
rescue the nation from the spirit of greed that is destroying our nation, and
realign our country with her destiny course… History has witnessed the Ancient
of Days who used His prophets to change entire nations overnight and turn
captivity into triumph time and time again… Extraordinary economic miracles are
ready to explode upon our nation as we gather around the Throne of God in holy
assembly. New signs and wonders of unprecedented proportion will become the
clear guideposts on the road to recovery.”

All efforts to find a
political leader to head up the take-over of America for Christ seemed to fail
until Donald J. Trump put his hat in the presidential ring. The NAR, like the
other streams of Christendom, saw Trump as their long-awaited leader. Through
one of their own, televangelist Paula White, NAR false prophets like Sammy
Rodriguez and Lance Wallnau were invited to lay hands on Trump in prayer for
his success. Trump no doubt is totally in the dark about their agenda, but he
received them as religious names with big followings that could bring in the
vote.

The Trump fever has caught
on with the rest of the Pentecostal/charismatic Americans. The Elijah List
online TV network aired a recent church service on November 20, 2016 with Messianic
Pastor Curt Landry, in which he had his large congregation stand and repeat a
decree after him. A loud shofar was blown before and after the stated
affirmation. I’ll end this section with a portion of that ‘prayer’ --

“We
agree with the decrees that Donald John Trump, president elect of the United
States of America – we agree with his proclamations and we decree he is sent to
the United States in 2016, biblical year 5777 as an anointed Cyrus. We receive
him and we set him in place in Yeshua’s name. And we agree out of Zion and out
of the courts of heaven that you would release new angels and Michael the
archangel and the heavenly hosts of Israel around him his family and all his
administration. We decree they are off limits to the attacks of the enemy. We
cover them in the blood of Jesus. We thank you Lord. There is a wall of
protection around their life and everywhere they go. Father, God, in the name
of Jesus, we receive the Cyrus anointing into our life into our mountain. We
touch and agree that this next 8 years be a season of prosperity, a season of
great health, a season of revival and a wakening blast… and we as the one new
man, as the inheritance of God decree and declare that President elect is a
Cyrus, sent to the United States and to Israel and to the nations to bring
alignment with God’s ways, to bust open the gates of iron. Father God, this
45th president will break open the gates of bronze. Father God, this Jubilee
year, he will subdue the nations; he will loose the armor of kings; he will
open the double doors so that the gates will not be shut. We as a nation will
go before and make a way to make the crooked places straight again so other
nations might align with the United States and not make war but that we would
prosper. . . We release the key of David and the sure mercies of David over
President-elect Donald John Trump... and we put a demand on the treasures of
darkness and hidden riches in secret places, come forth now in Yeshua’s name.
We decree in the courts of heaven that the transfer of wealth with the Cyrus
anointing (King Midas?) sitting in the highest place in the land, that the
economy… will recover, with exponential growth, witty inventions, and Cyrus
will prosper and the remnant of God, following God’s ways will prosper for
God’s kingdom, in Jesus’ name. Father God, we seal it in Yeshua’s name…”

Friday, February 10, 2017

Just
as the New Age Movement of the 1980s morphed into today’s progressives, the
Reconstructionists of that decade still exist but shy away from labels. The
beliefs of both remain intact. The Recons of the 21st century can be
seen in groups like the Tea Party – political activists who wave the American
flag over President Trump. They have a better argument than the other religious
factions for claiming to be the secret to his election victory.

As
the Catholic apologist pointed out, the Protestant view of the end times is
similar to their own. Both the Catholic Church and the denominations that broke
off from the mother church take their eschatology from Augustine, author of The City of God. Both deny the biblical
view that Jesus will return and establish the Kingdom of God on earth for 1,000
years, ruling out of Jerusalem – when the “New Jerusalem” comes down out of
heaven. The former are A-millennialists and the latter are
Post-millennial.

The
author of The Late Great Planet Earth,
Hal Lindsey, explains the difference:

“By the time of Augustine (A.D. 354—425), the famous
Bishop of Hippo, Origen’s system of interpretation dominated the Christian
scene. But it was Augustine who systematized the allegorically based teachings
into a cohesive theology that would dominate the Church for over a thousand
years. Even the Reformers continued to hold most of his views, including his
allegorically based, unrefined eschatology. The Roman Catholic Church…
instituted the teaching that they were the inheritors of the Kingdom promised
to Israel and therefore must take ultimate authority over the political powers
of this world. “ [The Road to Holocaust,
pp 9-10)

The Catholic A-millennialists saw no future reign of Christ on earth; saw
His second coming as marking the end of history. That would be one big
resurrection of all people who ever lived, good and bad together and then the
final judgment and all would go to heaven or hell.

Lindsey defines Post- millennialism
as the theory that “states that Christ will come only after the
Spirit-empowered Church has established God’s Kingdom on the earth by
progressively subduing the world and taking dominion over it.” Both A &
Post- millennialists “believe that the present age is the Kingdom of God and
understand the word millennium only
in a symbolic sense. The major difference between them is that
Postmillennialists believe the Kingdom of God is not just a spiritual reign of
Christ in the hearts of believers, but an actual reign of the Church over all
society in this age… they have transferred to the Church all of Israel’s
covenants and promises concerning a global Theocratic Kingdom, and shifted the
time of their fulfillment to before Christ’s Second Advent rather than after
it.” [Ibid. pp 28-29]

Both Catholics and mainline
Protestants kept eschatology on the back burner for hundreds of years until the
rebirth of the belief in Pre-millennialism - the view of the imminent return of
Christ – had its zenith in the mid-twentieth century. Although this was the
view of the ancient church for the first three hundred years of the Church, the
old guard saw it as a threat to their own church membership. In fact, many
became downright hostile to teachers like Hal Lindsey and other scholars out of
Dallas Theological Seminary that taught the Dispensationalist view of end
times.

Dispensationalism views Revelation as a book of
future events, taken literally, yet acknowledging its use of symbolism and
typology in its apocalyptic language. From the study of
the prophetic books of the Bible, both old and new testaments, and the words of
Jesus in the Gospels, came the clear teaching of a literal 1,000-year-reign of
Christ on earth following a 7-year time of trouble called the Great Tribulation
in which the devil, in the person of the Antichrist, would be in charge of a
global government. God’s wrath would be
poured out on him and his followers during that time until most life on earth
would be destroyed. Then Jesus would return with His saints that had been taken
up bodily into heaven in the Rapture of the Church and the devil would be bound
for a thousand years during the newly established Kingdom of God on earth.

In response to that teaching, mainline Protestants
came up with an alternative interpretation of Revelation called Preterism,
which views the events in the apocalyptic books as allegorical -- describing
past events of Bible history. Preterism became the remedy to what they considered
End Times Fever. It took some real Scripture twisting to project their desired
eschatology into the Bible, but they sure made it sound scholarly.

The biggest name in Reconstructionism is Dr. Rousas
Rushdoony (1916-2001) a Presbyterian minister and author of over thirty books.
He founded the Chalcedon Foundation. His high-minded plan for Christianizing
modern society is in his Institutes of
Biblical Law, published in 1973. He was assisted by his son-in-law Gary
North who served as editor of The Journal
of Christian Reconstruction until the two split over some doctrinal
differences in 1981, according to Lindsey.

Both men fell off the scene at the turn of the
century: one died, and the other’s reputation was shot after loudly promoting
the hysteria of the time, the Y2K scare. He had Christians in a panic that at
the turn of the century, New Year’s Eve, 1999 at the stroke of midnight, all
computers would shut down due to the date no longer starting with a ’19.’ There
would be blackouts, airplanes would fall from the sky, and every modern
contraption that uses computers would cease to operate. Planetary chaos would
ensue.

North referred to Pre-millennialists as ‘pessimillennialists,’
since he saw them losers for not having a victorious view of their mission. His
associate, David Chilton spelled out their dominionist aspirations:

“The Bible gives us an eschatology
of dominion, an eschatology of victory. This is not some blind,
‘everything-will-work-out-somehow’ kind of optimism. It is a solid, confident,
Bible-based assurance that, before the Second Coming of Christ, the gospel will
be victorious throughout the entire world.’” [Quoted in Road to Holocaust, pg.
41]

North calls the beliefs of
the faithful Bride, “escapist religion.” He explains what he means by that:

“This is the second great
tradition of antichristian religion. Seeing that the exercise of autonomous
power is a snare and a delusion, the proponents of escapist religion have
sought to insulate themselves from the general culture – a culture maintained
by power. They have fled the responsibilities of worldwide dominion, or even
regional dominion, in the hope that God will excuse them from the general
dominion covenant… The basic idea lying behind escapist religion is the denial
of the dominion covenant… This rival religion proclaims peace because it has
little interest in the systematic efforts that are always required to purify
institutions as a prelude to social reconstruction. In short, escapist religion
calls for flight from the world…” [North, Liberating Planet Earth: An Introduction
to Biblical Blueprints, Dominion Press, 1987]

There is nowhere in
Scripture that calls on the Church to rule the world. The only dominion given
to man in the Bible is in the book of Genesis when God gave Adam dominion over
the animals. He never gave man dominion over other men as any sort of spiritual
mandate. These people are so self-deluded. Rather than growing in power and
influence in the world, Jesus told us the world would hate us just as it hated
Him. And the Apostle John reminded us of that fact: “Do not love the world
or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
him.” – 1 John 2:15

North’s ridicule of
biblical Christianity could very well have played a role in the LORD removing
him from any influence. His feet are firmly planted in this world, as can be
said of all Reconstructionists, but the true believer is a citizen of Heaven
from which we eagerly await our Savior, the LORD Jesus Christ. That’s not
escapism, that’s “the Faith once and for all delivered to the saints.”

Unfortunately, the dominionist aspirations of North
and Rushdoony are alive and well on planet earth, although under a different
label. In the forefront is a group called the Coalition on Revival (COR), a
Reconstructionist group pushing the belief that churches, working in unity,
could impose the Old Testament laws upon believers and unbelievers alike.
Thirty years ago they produced a large document called “A Manifesto for the
Christian Church: Declaration and Covenant,” that was distributed to many churches
and para-church organizations, mostly those of the Reformed (Calvinist) and
Protestant camps. In fact, COR’s website is www.reformation.net, since the
unfinished reforms of the Catholic Church in the Reformation of the 16th
century is their badge of credibility.

One of the aims of the
Manifesto is to get all of Christendom to work together to accomplish a new
Theocracy, with them at the top. They push a unity with all and envision a hierarchy
to which all must submit. They summarize
it in what they call “A Plan” (same term used by the New Age movement), which
says that the church (generic) needs to be taught: “The need for and strategy
to achieve the restructuring of society – in the home and in the fields of law,
government, business and economics, education, the media, the arts, science and
medicine, etc. – that all these fields may be brought under the Lordship of
Christ and operate according to the principles of the Bible.”

One of the points in the
Manifesto clearly shows an opposition to Premillennialists, an attitude upon
which all dominionists find common ground. It lays it out like this:

“We
have concerned ourselves more with Heaven, the future, and escaping this world
at Christ’s Second Coming, than with preparing His Bride to be spotless, beautiful,
glorious, and pleasing to Him when He comes.”

“We
believe that it would be strategically wise for the sake of getting God’s will
to be done on earth to seek to reclaim America and reset her on the biblical
law base on which she was originally founded. From a reborn and rebuilt America
could be launched an increased missionary explosion and the exportation of
Christian-influenced business, government, art, and technology.”

The National Coordinating
Council, the political arm of COR, back in 1990 shows how far-reaching and
inclusive the leadership of the Recons is. Some better known names that sat on
the Council included: Ted Baehr, Good News Communication, Cal Beisner, Prof.
Covenant College, Harold O. J. Brown, Prof. Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Gary
DeMar, American Vision, Duane Gish, Inst. For Creation Research, D. James
Kennedy, Pastor Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Harold Lindsell, Editor
Emeritus Christianity Today,and representatives from Reformed seminaries
and Protestant churches. They even had “The Charismatic Council” with such
dignitaries as: Jack Deere, author associated with The Vineyard, Vinson Synan,
mastermind of the ecumenical Congress on the Holy Spirit mega-conferences,
Rodman Williams, prof Regent University, Karl Strader, Carpenters Home Church
(that started the holy laughter craze), and names with ties to Oral Roberts
University and YWAM.

If you look at the magazine, Christianity
Today, you can see the fragments of COR from cover-to-cover.

COR’s recommended books to
help church leaders along include, Taking
Our Cities for God, by John Dawson, Creation House, The Harvest, by Rick Joyner, MorningStar Publications, The Church Triumphant at the End of the Age,
by Nate Krupp, Destiny Image Publishers; Winning
the Battle for the Minds of Men, by Dennis Peacocke, Alive and Free
Publishing and a variety of books and manuals by Reformed writers. The point in
placing books by charismatics into the list, no doubt, is to sell the dominion
mandate to them. Unfortunately for COR, they did such a good job of it that
those they were trying to convert, broke free and began their own Kingdom-Now
efforts, excluding the Reformed camp, plagiarizing much of the theology that
the Reconstructionists already worked out.

The charismatic alternative
to COR, the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), is headed up by a group of men and
women, claiming to be the new prophets and apostles (something that would cause
the Reformed camp to cringe), that replaced the Manifesto with what they call The Seven Mountain Mandate. It has the
same Kingdom-Now aims, but with a ‘prophetic’ vision tacked on – another competing
New World Order to the New Age-inspired globalists, the Roman Catholic Church,
and the Protestant Reformers. They too have grand plans for President Trump.

Monday, February 6, 2017

President
Trump is an American Patriot. His slogan, “Make America Great Again” makes the
globalists cringe. His platform of putting America first enrages the socialists
on the political Left. Never in the history of America has there been such
unreasonable opposition to a Commander-in-Chief. The New World Order and its
allies hate the Donald and have spent untold millions of dollars bankrolling
his enemies in order to create chaos in the streets. There is no length to
where the NWO is willing to go to take Trump down.

The
president is very aware of the globalist agenda of the United Nations and stands
in opposition to the leftist conspiracies against America, Israel, and the
western world. Those who have been programmed by the NWO oppose Trump’s efforts
to protect this country’s sovereignty, culture, and borders. He’s not in their
control as were his predecessors.

What
Trump doesn’t realize is that he has aligned himself with a competing One World
Agenda. A song from the 80s put it this way: “Everybody wants to rule the
world.”

Bible
prophecy foretells a global religious system will arise that rides the beast of
the political one-world government (Revelation 17). She is personified as a
spiritual whore called “The Mother of Harlots.” She cooperates with the
antichrist that will turn on her and “burn her with fire” (vs.16). These two
competing one-world systems are now developing and will eventually unite. That
time is getting very close.

Let’s
take a look at the destinies envisioned by various “Christian” institutions with
global ambitions that see Trump as their own personal knight in shining armor.

The
Roman Catholic Church’s Destiny

The
oldest group that institutionalized Christianity as a means of controlling the people
is, of course, the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). It is well documented that this
megalith had its start in the fourth century when Emperor Constantine declared
Christianity to be the state religion. The bishop of Rome therefore determined
he was superior to the bishops in other ancient cities. He took on the emperor’s
title of Pontifex Maximus (a title
lifted from the Roman Emperors meaning “greatest bridge-builder”) and declared
himself the spiritual leader over the kings of the earth. All other bishops had
to be subservient to the one at the top of the heap known as the pope, or the “Vicar
of Christ.” Later as the traditions of men evolved, he was determined to be infallible
and the singular representative of Christ on earth.

The
Roman Catholic Church had global aspirations from the beginning. Secular rulers
in Europe, then known as the “Holy Roman Empire,” could not reign without the
pope’s blessing (just look at the story of King Henry VIII). To expand their
authority, they began adapting the local pagan festivals and pageantry adding ‘Christian’
meanings to them to make them their own. This of course led to the persecution
of any Christians that would not recognize the authority of the popes. They
also carried the sword (and instruments of torture), as in Constantine’s vision
of the cross, “Under this sign conquer,” which justified centuries of crusades
and inquisitions.

The
Protestant Reformation of the 16th century kicked the teeth out of the Roman
beast, allowing rival Christian institutions to arise, starting in England and
then in Germany and beyond. And so the competition for the loyalty and
offerings of the laity spread among the others donning clerical robes and
mitres to signify their hierarchies. The RCC of today has been stripped of her power
over the kings, although given the opportunity; she’d take it all back.

[The
reason for the female pronouns is that the RCC refers to their institution as “The
Holy Mother Church.” They personify her as a woman and recent popes have
dedicated themselves to another ‘woman,’ the Queen of Heaven, known by many
names all believed to be various materializations of Jesus’ mother, Mary.]

Few
people realize that the RCC does have an eschatology, an expectation of the end
times. They did not arrive at their vision of coming events from Scripture, but
from centuries of sayings of ‘saints,’ mystics, and apparitions. The visions
that were ratified by the Magisterium formed the body of ‘knowledge’ and took
precedence over Bible prophecies. In fact, the words of Scripture were twisted to
comply with and ratify these strange doctrines of demons. And like other
extra-biblical prognostications, specified dates have come and gone proving
them to be false prophecies, but that has not stopped the ‘faithful’ from
trusting in them.

One
of the most famous and trusted visions of the end is Don Bosco (1815-1888) –
who built on the vision of the ‘Three Days of Darkness’ predicted by many
Catholic saints, including stigmatic Padre Pio. Wikipedia even has an entry for
the vision:

“Blessed Anna Maria Taigi (1769–1837) is the most
known seer of the Three Days of Darkness and describes the event in this way: ‘There
shall come over the whole earth an intense darkness lasting three days and
three nights. Nothing can be seen, and the air will be laden with pestilence
which will claim mainly, but not only, the enemies of religion. It will be
impossible to use any man-made lighting during this darkness, except blessed
candles. He, who out of curiosity, opens his window to look out, or leaves his
home, will fall dead on the spot. During these three days, people should remain
in their homes, pray the Rosary and beg God for mercy. All the enemies of the
Church, whether known or unknown, will perish over the whole earth during that
universal darkness, with the exception of a few whom God will soon convert. The
air shall be infected by demons who will appear under all sorts of hideous
forms.’”

[Subsequently
to this prediction, many Catholic eschatologists interpret the three days of darkness
to be a longer period of time, possibly a three year period during the coming
reign of the Antichrist.]

St.
Don Bosco’s famous vision of war ships on the sea and the pope at the helm of
one of them trying to escape enemy ships steers it toward the center of two
columns. One Catholic website attributes this quote to him of his vision of May
30, 1862:

“Breaking through all resistance, the new
Pope steers his ship safely between the two columns and moors it to the two
columns; first to the one surmounted by the Host, and then to the other, topped
by the statue of the Virgin. At this point something unexpected happens. The
enemy ships panic and disperse, colliding with and scuttling each other… Many
others, which had fearfully kept far away from the fight, stand still,
cautiously waiting until the wrecked enemy ships vanish under the waves. Then,
they too head for the two columns, tie up at the swinging hooks, and ride safe
and tranquil beside their flagship. A great calm now covers the sea. Very grave
trials await the Church. What we have suffered so far is almost nothing
compared to what is going to happen. The enemies of the Church are symbolized
by the ships which strive their utmost to sink the flagship. Only two things
can save us in such a grave hour: devotion to Mary and frequent Communion.“
[https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/vision-john-don-bosco-two-columns-mary-eucharist/
]

A letter from Bosco to the
pope gave a prophecy regarding the earlier vision, rebuking the pope and the
Magisterium for their lack of zeal. “These things shall inexorable come to
pass, all in succession,” Bosco wrote. “Things follow too slowly upon each
other, but the great Queen of Heaven is at hand; the Lord’s power is Hers. Like
mist She shall scatter Her enemies. She shall vest the Venerable Old Man (from
Rome, the Pope) with all his former garments. There shall yet come a violent
hurricane. Iniquity is at an end, sin shall cease, and before two full moons
shall have shone in the month of flowers (May), the rainbow of peace shall appear
on the earth.” [“Vision of Don Bosco; Two Full Moons in May; Good Newsletter,
Vol 10, No 1, Lent 1998, Bob and Penny Lord)

The authors concluded, “We
are not doomsday people… But we can’t ignore the signs before our eyes…. The two
full moons in May will occur again in 1999.”

To summarize the RCC’s mystical
idea of the time of the end: it starts with an apostasy consisting of
corruption in the priesthood, decimating church membership (Pedophile priest
scandal). An antipope comes to power that abolishes long-held church laws (Pope
Francis?). The antipope works in conjunction with a wicked ruler (Antichrist?).
Horrible dark times of doom and gloom – wars, earthquakes, upheavals (as Jesus’
prophecies of the birth pangs). The ‘faithful’ church militant kicks into
action and with the power of many, many rosaries and Eucharistic adoration, the
Queen of Heaven shows up, installs a new holy pope and righteous king, and defeats
the antichrist. An undetermined long time of peace follows, all the world is
converted to Catholicism, a good worldly king and holy pope are in full control
of the new Kingdom of God covering the entire earth. At the end of that long
kingdom era, Jesus returns to initiate the eternal heavenly Kingdom and that’s
the end of planet earth. Whew!

“Dominion and the bringing
of all temporal authority under the papacy has always been a goal of Roman
Catholicism,” wrote Al Dager in the Summer, 2005 issue of Media Spotlight. “What
do you think ‘the Holy Roman Empire’ was about?... The entire world will one
day recognize the pope as the spiritual head of mankind.”

Today a very large portion
of Catholics believe that the three days of darkness followed by the defeat of
the Antichrist is very close at hand. In fact, it is the more devout Catholics
who share that collective concern over the unfolding of current events. Gay
rights, abortion, terrorism, climate change, corrupt clergy – all point to the
unparalleled reign of sin and the devil.

The global era of peace
seems to be a predominant idea in the RCC that can’t happen until the Vatican
unites all Christians under her rule. The so-called apparition of ‘Our Lady of
Fatima,’ confirmed Bosco’s vision. Cardinal Mario Luigi, the Papal Theologian
Emeritus, wrote a letter to the pope, dated Oct. 9, 1994: “Yes, a miracle was
promised at Fatima, the greatest miracle in the history of the world, second
only to the Resurrection. And that miracle will be an era of peace which has
never really been granted before to the world.“… Our Blessed Mother promised us
this era of peace if we say the daily Rosary, practice the First Saturday
Communion of Reparation, and live lives consecrated in the truth.”

Rev. Kevin Barrett, the
Apostolate Chaplain of Catholic Familyland in Ohio, wrote in his newsletter of
March 8, 1999 that “Of all the prophecies Mary made at Fatima, only two have
not yet come true; the annihilation of nations and the Triumph of Her
Immaculate Heart. Remember, all prophesies are conditional and dependent upon our
response.” Good thing he added that unbiblical reminder, since he also pointed
out in the same letter the Don Bosco put a timeframe onto his pillars-vision. “But
before the year 2000, he (Bosco) foretold, the Church would win a glorious
victory through the laity who are loyal to the pope, devoted to the Eucharist
and to Our Lady.”

To put this Mariology into
some biblical context, Michael Voris, head of a Detroit-centered apostolate
called Church Militant, teaches the official catechism of the RCC. He sees
prototypes of Mary outside the four Gospels. She is the fulfillment of the Ark
of the Covenant since she carried Jesus in her own temple body. She is the ‘new
Eve’ since when Jesus told John at the foot of the cross, “behold thy mother,”
he represented all of mankind of which she is now the mother. She is the
co-mediatrix and co-redemptrix and co-author of our salvation. Voris shared an excerpt
from his new book, The Weapon, on his
Church Militant website:

“Mary is a tenderloving
mother, absolutely. But She is also the Queen of the heavenly armies, the
angels, and Queen of the saints. She may be sweet Mother to us, but to Hell and
the devils, She is a terrifying sight to behold… She is the Woman of Genesis,
the Woman of the Apocalypse. And She is the greatest terror of the serpent. In
Eden, the diabolical legions could not know they had already achieved their
high-water mark, their most supreme victory. As the sun set that first night
following the Fall of mankind, a new day was in the offing, a slow, constant
march of rolling back from their victory. What would appear at the dawn would
be a New Woman, a New Eve, Who comes forth brilliant as the dawn, terrible as
an army arrayed for battle (Song of Solomon 6:10)… After Eden, Hell searched in
vain for the Woman, looking, wondering precisely what the Most High could have
meant by the prophetic decree that it would be a Woman who would crush the head
of their lord.”

The Weapon is the rosary –
that makes devils quiver. The Bible would identify it as prayers by rote and
endless repetitions – that the heathen do thinking God will hear them.

Rome sees the Catholic
Church as the legitimate heir/replacement of Israel. Catholic apologist, Carl
E. Olsen wrote in his 2003 article, “Are We Living in the Last Days?” – “The
Catholic Church has always understood herself as being the New Israel…
Interestingly enough, even Luther and Calvin understood the Church to be the
true heir of Israel. They also would have rejected dispensationalism, which
only emerged as a method of biblical interpretation in the last two hundred
years or so.”

However another Catholic
theologian reviewing the Left Behind series in a major Catholic newspaper, Our
Sunday Visitor, admitted the premillennial return of Christ was believed by the
early church. “Since the fourth century, when the expectation of Christ’s
imminent return passed, the Catholic Church (and subsequently most mainstream
Protestants) has followed Jesus’ instruction that ‘you know not the day or the
hour” . . . Following the example of St. Augustine in The City of God, the teaching Church has been cautious about
interpreting the visions in Scriptural apocalyptic literature literally, and,
most especially, about connecting these visions to contemporary events.”

So the official RCC teaching
is there is no earthly millennial rule of Jesus Christ. Catholic apologist Karl
Keating’s ‘ministry’ Catholic Answers gave this official version:

“Pre-tribulationism is
biblically bankrupt and does not know it. What is the Catholic position? As far
as the millennium goes, we tend to agree with Augustine and, derivatively, with
the amillennialists. The Catholic position has thus historically been ‘amillennial’
as has been the majority Christian position in general, including that of the Protestant
Reformers, though Catholics do not typically use this term.”

Keating is not
contradicting Fatima with this statement. The coming days of darkness Rome
anticipates is not connected with any millennium rule of Christ personally.
They just see the fulfillment of His millennial rule as ruling through them.

So that brings us to Trump.

In a recent article in the
New York Times, critical of President Trump and his religious allies, such as
Michael Voris, writer Samual G. Freedman, writes:

“As
the Trump administration prepares to take office, the use of Church Militant
theology has gone well beyond its religious meaning and has taken on a
political resonance. To fully grasp what “church militant” means in this highly
politicized atmosphere, it helps to examine the broader movement and the role
of a traditionalist Catholic website called — to no surprise —
ChurchMilitant.com… Michael Voris, the senior executive producer of
ChurchMilitant.com, said the website’s positions were a righteous defense of
patriotism and morality on behalf of people who believe those virtues have been
attacked by liberals, secularists and global elites.”

Voris
is out in the open about his support of Trump. In fact, he credits Trump’s
victory with the rosaries recited by all his Catholic viewers of his YouTube
channel. He credits Trump’s victory to the number one spiritual weapon
prophesied to make the difference during the time of darkness that he sees his
church is currently in. On a recent broadcast, Voris elaborated.

“And
to Trump has fallen the role (whether he yet realizes it or not) of
Constantine, the ambitious man who wanted to be emperor of Rome, but who was
ignorant of the fact that Heaven would step in for him for Heaven's own
reasons. … The forces aligned against
him were too great. And then Heaven intervened with the famous vision or dream
on the night before the battle whereby Jesus Christ told Constantine to bear
His standard of the Chi-Ros on his army, and he would win the day. "In hoc
signo vinces" — "In this sign you shall conquer." And conquer he
did. ..Constantine entered Rome the undisputed emperor, ended the persecution
against the Church, and a year later elevated the Church to the level of
preferred religion of the empire. … and a new era of history — salvation
history — was inaugurated. Whether Donald Trump could unwittingly be another
Constantine, in at least holding back the enemies of the Church, who knows?
Heaven has certainly used other earthly rulers in the past for Heaven's end —
good and bad rulers. Millions of Catholics all over America are in the middle
of a 54-day Rosary novena for a good outcome to the election, past the midway
point, in fact. Since the start of the novena, almost to the day, Diocletian's
fortunes have tumbled and Constantine's have risen, drawing near parity. Could
the Rosary be the sign of conquering in this case? If Heaven wills it, yes. But
Constantine has to respond correctly.”Vortex
Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Voris
often speaks of the current crisis in the Mother Church. Just look at the stats
he shared on a recent Vortex:

“No other religion in America is losing adherents at
the rate the Catholic Church is… For each person standing there being baptized,
six others have jettisoned the Faith in their lives. At current trends, the
Catholic Church in the United States will cease to exist in just 50 years! Stop
and think about that for a moment — a story of epic failure. If you are in your
twenties or even early thirties right now, you will live to see this: the eradication of the Catholic
Church in the United States, with
only a few very small tiny pockets here and there.”

So
where does Trump, Pope Francis, and the Queen of Heaven fit into the visions of
these Catholic saints and apparitions? When the real Great Tribulation occurs,
will Catholics interpret it as the “Three Days of Darkness?” We’ll examine
these questions more closely after we examine the other triumphant churches.

The
Catholics now have their Constantine. We will now look at the end times
expectations of Protestants and Evangelicals and their new hero, King Cyrus.

About Me

"Take heed, watch and
pray; for you do not know when the time is... Watch therefore,
for you do not know when the master of the house is coming--in the
evening (Pre-Trib), at midnight (Mid-Trib),
at the crowing of the rooster (Pre-Wrath),
or in the morning (Post-Trib)-- lest,
coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say
to all: Watch!’"